roadside brook. We hear much discussion in New England to-day of "how to
keep the young folks on the farm." But why should they stay on the farm, to
toil and starve, in body and mind? We have so organized our whole society
on a competitive commercial basis that they can now do nothing else. Those
ancient apple trees beside the ruined house once grew fruit superior in
taste to any apple which ever came from Hood River or Wenatchee, and could
grow it again; but greed has determined that our cities shall pay five
cents apiece for the showy western product, and the small individual grower
of the East is helpless. We have raised individualism to a creed, and
killed the individual. We have exalted "business," and depopulated our
farms. The old gray ruin on the back road to Monterey is an epitome of our
history for a hundred years.

But to pursue such reflections too curiously would take our mind from the
road, our eyes from the wild flower gardens lining the way--the banks of
blueberries fragrant in the sun, the stately borders of meadow rue where
the grassy track dips down through a moist hollow. And to pursue such
reflections too curiously would take us far afield from the spot we planned
to reach when we took up our pen for this particular journey. That spot was
the bit of sandy lane, just in front of Cap'n Bradley's house in old South
County, Rhode Island. The lane leads down from the colonial Post Road to
the shore of the Salt Pond, and the Cap'n's house is the first one on the
left after you leave the road. The second house on the left is inhabited by
Miss Maria Mills. The third house on the left is the Big House, where they
take boarders. The Big House is on the shore of the Salt Pond. There are no
houses on the right of the lane, only fields full of bay and huckleberries.
The lane runs right out on a small pier and apparently jumps off the end
into whatever boat is moored there, where it hides away in the hold,
waiting to be taken on a far journey to the yellow line of the ocean beach,
or the flag-marked reaches of the oyster bars. It is a delightful,
leisurely little lane, a byway into another order from the modernized
macadam Post Road where the motors whiz. You go down a slight incline to
the Cap'n's house, and the motors are shut out from your vision. From here
you can glimpse the dancing water of the Salt Pond, and smell it too, when
the wind is south, carrying the odour of gasolene the other way. The
Cap'n's house